Indian - Day 21 - Thursday 24th November

 Woke early on the boat and had a short walk on the bank before the others joined us for tea and breakfast.  The boat cast off at about 8.30 and we quickly entered the vast Vembanadu Lake.  It took Nother two hours to reach the northern part of the lake where our next, and final, hotel was located.  The last part of the journey was made trickier by the vast amounts of water hyacinth clogging the surface.

The Coconut Lagoon is another CGH resort, and this time out but has a wonderful old wood ceiling, and a veranda overlooking one of the canals.  We watched two men clearing some of the ever present weed, then joined the others in reception.

Our boat trip to a farm for lunch turned into a tuk-tuk ride, then a short boat trip across to the island.  We visited part of the farm, then had one of our best meals of the trip.

Back at the hotel we had a swim, and a laze, and watched a monitor lizard walk past us, then met four of the others for an evening meal in the seafood restaurant.

India - Day 20 - Wednesday 23rd November

Our coach left the Spice Village at 8am, and we endured the bumpy, hair-raising ride down the hills towards the coast. The scenery was magnificent, all misty mountains and twisty roads, but the traffic density was amazingly high, and the overtaking on blind bends was terrifying at times. We passed back through the tea growing areas, and past all the rubber plantations.

Back on lower ground we started to see paddy fields full of rice and long channels of water. After about five hours the coach pulled up at the side of the road, we said goodbye to our driver and his assistant, and we transferred into tuk-tuks for the final 3 kms down to the boat yard.

Our groups has been divided between two boats, and once our luggage was on board we set off through the mixture of lakes and broad canals that form the back waters of Kerala. The boats are much bigger than I expected, with a large lounge/dining area at the front, four double bedrooms down the boat then a kitchen at the rear. 

The density of houseboats is high, apparently there are over 600 privately owned houseboats on these waters, and the driving style is slightly reminiscent of the roads. The views and birds we see make up for everything though. We also have an excellent lunch on board.

The density drops dramatically as evening approaches, and by the time we moor at around 5.30 we can only see two other boats. As the sun goes down our crew attach mosquito nets round the lounge area, and we soon realise how necessary these are. Dinner is served about 7, another delicious meal, then we sit around reading, writing and squishing bugs, and watching the occasional fire fly.

India - Day 19 - Tuesday 22nd November

 

Sadan came up trumps this morning, he found an ATM which had money, and no queue. We dashed down with him and managed to get some cash. Tony tried to get some cash about an hour later, but it had already run out of cash by then.  Breakfast was delicious!

At 9.30 we left in the coach for a short trip into the Periyar National Park. There we donned leech proof socks and were given, on two groups, into the tender command of a guide for a walking tour.

We saw lots of birds as we walked along side the lake, then slightly further inland we saw an Indian hornets nest. Apparently if you are stung by five of these at the same time you will die. Pleased to say we saw no live hornets at all.

Further on our guide asked for complete silence, and as we rounded a corner we saw several,other tour groups on a bank ahead, and a wild elephant in the distant trees. Suddenly he started to charge towards us, and our guides told us to run. Indeed, they nearly picked us up and carried us away! I got a quick photo, which was much admired.

We waited on a further bank, and four more elephants came into view, including a baby and a young male. We stood transfixed for about 30 minutes watching them until our guide made us move on.

We left the park and headed back to our hotel, where we had a quick, cold swim, before heading into town for a quick shopping trip. I bought another saree, and Mick tried some local chocolate.

At 4pm we got back on the coach for a visit to a spice plantation. Though the area for the tours was relatively smallish there were a huge variety of spices growing, including cardamon, ginger, pepper, vanilla, allspice and tumeric.

Our guide was very knowledgable and entertaining, and there were many animals on the farm next door as well.

Next trip was to a small elephants trekking area where 6 of us paid to have an elephant ride for 20 minutes. It was a small trail round the edge of a field of coconut palms, and the saddles where just thickly padded blankets with a wire frame providing hand and foot holds. Our seat kept slipping sideways, and the elephant was huge which made sitting astride close to painful.

Mick and I got off the coach early on the way back, and did a bit more shopping, this time for a pair of cooking pots. We also got another suitcase and some more cash from the ATM which had been re filled during the day.

India - Day 18 - Monday 21st November.

We leave the hotel at 8.30 for a long drive into the Western Ghat hills.  Along the way we see two elephants outside a temple, rowdy for a festival.

The Ghats run North to South and define Keralas Western border with the neighbouring states. It's a very long drive, round many hairpin bends and up steep roads. Overtaking is even more hair raising then normal, and we are relived when we arrive safely. Along the way we pass rubber plantations, and then, as we get higher into the hills, tea plantations. We get two stops on the way, once for the toilet and refreshments, and the second to photograph the tea bushes and harvesters.

Our hotel, Spice Village, is lovely, and we have a thatched hut close to the kitchen gardens. First activity is a tour of the grounds with one of the naturalists employed by the hotel. Their kitchen gardens are particularly impressive.

Later we attended another cooking demonstration, then watched some local dancers (female this time), before eating an excellent meal in the main restaurant of the hotel. Spice Village has the same ecological attitude as the Marari Beach, but here it is older, and much better managed.

India - Day 17 - Sunday 20th November

Mick and I get up early and take a quick bike ride to the ATM, but it has run out of cash again. A quick detour to the Chinese fishing nets for some photos, then we go back to the hotel for a swim before breakfast.

Everyone gathers for a walking tour of Fort Kochi, which starts off on the beach right by the hotel. Lots of families are out enjoying the day, or playing football in the beach.

Our walk takes us round the by the fishing nets again, and we get a chance to see them in action, though the only thing caught is weed. Through the market, then we end up in a shop to use their toilets and have a cup of tea, so I use the opportunity to buy another metre of fabric, and a silk saree.

Our coach then takes us to the north-eastern side of the Kochi peninsular to visit the old Jewish area. First stop is the Dutch Palace, built by the Prortugese. No photos allowed inside, but there are some amazing murals depicting the Ramayana epic story. Then we visit the synagogue, and walk back through an antiques shopping area.

Back to the hotel, and Mick and I go for another bike ride before the group meets at 4pm for a walk to the David Hall Gallery for a cup of tea. Then we visit St Francis church, site of the oldest Christian church in Kerala, before visiting a Catholic Church round the corner. There is a huge parade after the church service, which includes children dressed up as Jesus and Mary, and decorated tuk-tuks.

Final event for the evening is a performance of Kathakali, the local stylised dance tradition. We get to see the dancers applying their complicated make up before having an explanation and demonstration of the techniques used. It's a very static dance style, with great use of facial expressions and hand positions. 

We then get a small performance of an actual dance, before returning to our hotel. Mick and I opt for a local low price restaurant, the Dal Roti, and have an excellent meal!

India - Day 16 - Saturday 19th November

We depart the hotel at 10.30, with a small line of staff waving us goodbye. Despite the slight boredom at times, it was a fabulous place to stay and we feel fully recharged to tackle the rest of our holiday.

An interesting drive up the coastal road to Fort Kochi, passing through many small villages. We see preparations for weddings, and men mending fishing nets.

Our hotel, the Eighth Bastion, is part of the same chain as the beach resort, and we realise that all the hotel we are using in the next week are also in the same group. Their standards are very high, and their hotels are also quite individual, so we are happy with this. This time we have a sunken bath in our bathroom, and a room that opens out almost directly to the pool.

We meet a few members of our group (which is going to be 11 in total), Tony and Martine and Rory. Our guide is Sadan, and his first mission takes us to a government alcohol shop to buy some beer. Not only is our hotel in Fort Kochi not licensed for alcohol at all, but the beer we buy only costs 80 rupees a bottle, rather than the 300 to 600 rupees we have been paying the hotels. There is a limit of five bottles per person so we get 10, and pile them into the tuk-tuk for the return journey.

Sadan's second mission is to find us an ATM with cash which he succeeds with, and takes us there on hotel bicycles. Sadly the queue is too long for us to get any cash before we have to get back to the hotel for our afternoon tour, but we still have the option of going there tomorrow early in the morning. And Mick buys a hat on the way back, so we are very satisfied.

The whole group gathers later for a trip to the local market, and f the purchase of some fish. Our hotel chef goes with us and basically chooses our fish. We get a large Mari-Mari, a mullet and some prawns. 

Back at the hotel we have a cookery demonstration with our chef, and he cooks a prawn dish and a fish korma. He also shows us how to make roses out of cucumber?,white radish? And dye it red in beetroot juice. Then we all get to sit down and the hotel gives us a small dish of each curry we have seen being made.

A second trip out takes us to the Brunton Boatyard hotel where we board a boat for a sunset cruise in the harbour. No sun as it is overcast, but we have a delightful lady on board to point out some of the sites, and to sing to us. 

Once back at the hotel we have dinner provided outside, with local musicians playing in the corner. To Mick and I it is our worst meal in India, being a bland fish dish with veg, but it is still nice to get to meet our other travelling companions, three Marys with Peter and Frank, and Katherine, Rory's new wife.

India - Day 15 - Friday 18th November

Our final full day at the beach resort, and we're running out of things to do. There are a number of trips you can take from the hotel, but all of them are included in our upcoming tour. Brain wave strikes at 11am after a late breakfast, and we retire to the book house where the Internet connection is a bit faster, and there is a power socket, and we manage to watch the Brazilian Grand Prix from two weeks ago. An interesting race, and there is still hope that Lewis can win the championship at the final race of the season.

At 4pm we go on the village tour with a hotel guide. He's a naturalist and tells us all about the plants and trees we see, plus a beautiful dragonfly. 

One strange tree is the 'suicide tree'. The fruits look very like mangos, but will kill you in two hours if you eat one. However, the leaves are very good at extracting pollutants out of the air.

A couple of beers before dinner with Roger and Jennie from Sydney then we share a table with them in the fish restaurant. Another excellent meal, washed down by a bottle of Indian white wine.

India -Day 14 - Thursday 17th November

We got up slightly earlier today as I had a massage booked for 9am. This was a general body massage which involved a lot of hot coconut oil being poured onto my body, then being energetically rubbed in by two ladies.

Then it was the hard work of lying in hammocks reading for the rest of the day. We skipped lunch completely, then had a cup of tea from the barrow at 4pm, accompanied by a couple of little snacks.

For dinner we had the buffet option in the main restaurant, which was surprisingly good. The southern indian prawn dish served with rice noodles was particularly good, as were the fried calamari and prawns being cooked with large amounts of flame at one end of the dining area.

I tried one dish, a bitter gourd concoction and really didn't like it. Next thing we knew the executive chef hurried out to apologise to me. A nice touch, and it showed the staff all talk to each other.

Bed early, all that inactivity can be very tiring.

India - Day 10 - Sunday 13th November

 Sitting here on our last day at the beach resort, and trying to get the blog up to date, I have realised I missed a day, and got some of the dates confused as well.  I think I have got the days and dates corrected now, so I just need to add in the missing day.

It was the day we drove from Jaipur back to Delhi, not a particularly interesting day, so probably why I managed to miss it out!

The first thing we did, after a rather sleepless night on my part, was to try and sort out our cash difficulties.  So at just gone 7am we were outside the hotel getting a tuk-tuk driver to take us to an ATM that was not only open, but had cash.  The first five we tried had no cash, but then an excited conversation with a passer-by put us on the trail.  There were only about 10 people in front of us, but there was still the worry that the cash would run out before our turn.  The limit is 2000 rupees per transaction, so everyone is using as many cards as possible.  We finally get to the front of the queue after only half an hour, and use all six cards on us to get 12000 rupees.  Yippeeq, we have cash and can now pay the tips due to our guide, driver and his assistant.  

Back to the hotel for breakfast, then into the coach for the six hour trip back to Delhi.  As we wait for the bus we watch some of our group take part in a yoga session just outside our room.

We pass two elephants on the road and our driver obligingly slows down so we can take photographs, holding up all the traffic behind us.

We also pass some scaringly long queues at banks!

Back into Delhi, and back to the same hotel.  It's the first time we can actually plan where to eat in advance as we know the area.  Great meal with Jon and Judith, Chris and Sarah, then we say farewells before bed time.  Tomorrow we branch out on our own for several days until we start our second tour in Kerala in five days time.